Cope and Breathe
by baka coconut
Summary: SPOILERS ALL OVER THE PLACE DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T READ UP TO VOL.22! After the escape from Celes, Kuro and Fai have some issues to work out. Can they keep going on as they are? KuroFai shounenai, many many spoilers, and blood.


-1Author's note: Hello and welcome to my new fan fiction! I'm an author from a very long time ago, but I just re-started posting here and it's all confusing! What happened to the simplicity?! The last story I posted here was in like middle school and it was so insanely horrible! Thankfully for you lucky people though, my writing is much better now! Please enjoy the story, and constructive criticism is welcome!

Disclaimer: I don't own Tsubasa or any characters in it, because if I did, there'd be some serious Kamui/Subaru action, along with Kuro/Fai and Toya/Yuki. 3

Warnings: SPOILERS for up to volume 22! This story starts right after the party escapes from Celes and ends up in Nihon, just after Kuro wakes up.

Kuro/fai, vampire shounen-ai goodness, but no lemons. Not into writing them, sorry! I get embarrassed XD

Another note to make is I write in a funky perspective. It's like, first and a half POV XD So, I refers to Kurogane, and you refers to Fai. Everyone else will be addressed by their name. An example: I looked at you. Syaoran looked at Sakura and Mokona looked at everyone.

I Kuro, You Fai, and so on.

STORY TIME!

I gave a wicked little smirk to your fist. "You punch a lot harder than I thought you would. Your arms are so tiny, I thought you struggled just to hold up your staff." I pushed the covers back. The bandages made things hot enough.

"At least I have armS. You know… Plural." You smiled ruefully at me, glancing down at my newly lopsided body. "I don't know….Why you would do that. I tried to figure it out, but it makes no sense. You've never cared much for me, so why….why would you make such a sacrifice?" Your voice was so quiet, so tentative. Your long bangs shadowed your eye, making your eye patch look like a blindfold, making you into someone who wants to hide and not seek. Someone who wants to be punished. A blind man before the barrel of a gun.

"It's because, no matter what you think, I do care." I was surprised at your shocked response. Have I really been so cruel to you? "I've always wanted to become stronger so I could protect those I cared for. Recently, I've learned that the body isn't always enough to protect people in certain situations." I looked down at my hand, wanting to twiddle my thumbs together to allow more time to come up with a cognitive thought.

Seeing as how I don't have multiple thumbs anymore, that plan was ruined. "When I had to get you our of Celes, it was my heart that had to be strong. I had to be strong enough to cut off my arm to save you, and I have no regrets." I watched as your sad smile returned, and I could practically hear you trying to think of a way I could possibly not have regrets.

"Kurogane-sama…. I still don't see how I could be so important to you. Everything about me is a direct contradiction to you and your philosophies." You took your eyes off of me to stare at the floor. Maybe there's something down there that'll help you understand. Something that'll make you sound less desperate, less pathetic and lost.

"Fai, listen. You've been important to everyone always, and I at least think we've all been important to you. I mean, I know we haven't talked much about it, but you really wanted to save the first Syaoran. You gave him your eye so he could stay the way he was. It's the same principle with what's happening now. I wanted things to continue as they were, and that meant you had to still be with us." I smiled at you, an actual smile and not a smirk, trying to get it through your think skull that I care about you.

"But you know as well as I do things won't be the same. I'm technically a traitor, and I'm fresh out of motivation to live and travel with everyone." You tilted your head down again, casting that shadow once more over your ethereal skin, hiding from me. "I'm…A twin of mis-"

"No." My legs swung over the bed and my arm grasped your shoulder, holding on firmly. I ignored the insane burning sensation coming from my shoulder stub and my stomach. "No. Don't believe them. It's been a long time since then and they were wrong even when they first said it. Bad things happen to you because of bad people. People who wanted to hurt you are the people that surrounded you back then, causing you misfortune. It's not you, I swear." Our eyes lock and I'm not backing down. "I'm going to get through, and I'm going to make you understand and I'm going to make you become strong. If you need a reason to live and stay with us, then just look at the people you care about. Those kids need to be saved. They're running from destiny and they're loosing. We'll only change the future if we force it to change, and for that to happen, I can't let you give up. If anything, live out of obligation to me. I've saved your ass a couple of times now." Your astounded face melted to one of complacency. You nodded your head as you slid my arm off of your too-bony shoulder.

"It's alright, I'll keep going." You put your hand on my chest and I felt the spot grow cold. You haven't been taking care of yourself. Gentle pressure was applied. "Please lie down Kurogane-sama, I want you to get better quickly." His other hand went to reach for the cast-away blanket. I grabbed it in mine.

My hand fit snugly around yours, wrapping it up in my heat, but the coldness seeped into my skin anyway. I brought it up to my neck and pressed it against the beating flesh. "I want you to get better too. You haven't eaten in a long time. It's lucky for me though, if you had, you probably would have beaten me in Celes. But really, you're going to die soon if you don't." Your face split into that rueful smile again, burning resentment into my neck.

"I really shouldn't. You're already lacking a great deal of blood." That smile twisted into a smirk of knowing. Knowing no matter how much you struggle, I won't let you go.

"Fai, you know you're going to lose this, so just give up and drink already." You sighed an "Oh well, I tried' , though I sensed a bit of sarcasm in it. Your eye grew lustful as you leaned in. You smelled like incense, meaning you've been meditating. Perhaps that's how you've been able to ignore your thirst so efficiently for so long. I stared at a wall as you penetrated the fleshy artery, ignoring the slight fear of death from blood loss. I felt your hand creep up my back, eventually seizing the hair at the back of my head, twisting the spikes desperately between your porcelain fingers.

Your hunger became more and more apparent as time dragged it's feet through seconds, you coming closer and closer to me. Your legs eventually wound up on the bed, awkwardly straddling me. It was all well and good until my vision started to blur. I was just opening my mouth to requisition my neck back, but your teeth were already sliding out. You always did have a keen sense of timing.

"Satisfied? I'm going to be fine for a while now, so now it's time to take care of you." You were more forceful this time, pushing me down with your weight, unknowingly taking advantage of my loss of an arm. Up on your hands you went, smiling down at me with your hair hanging around your face like a halo of golden feathers. For a moment, I was awestruck. Then it was ruined of course by you lifting yourself from my lap.

"Roll over now so you're laying properly so I can tuck you in Kuro-sama!" I haven't seen you cheerful in a long time. In fact, really it's been ever since Tokyo, but as you gleefully lifted the blanket up, I saw a shadow of the chipper man I once knew as "Fai". I did as I was told and propped myself up on my pillows.

"Fai…" You looked attentively at me while you cutely tucked me in. It was slightly annoying. "What should I call you?" I didn't have to explain, I could tell you understood from the way your smile dropped right off your face as if gravity had just been multiplied by three.

"I guess…Fai could still be what you call me…. Yuui…is a name I've never liked. Apparently, it's not as disgraceful as I thought, but it still holds a lot of pain in it. To me, I still killed Fai, and I'm still not totally ready to accept that he's really gone. I still want to honor him with this name." I observed as you tried to plaster that fake smile back on your face. Haven't you realized that it won't come so easily now that everyone knows how false it really is? A small silence passed between us as you moved to the other side to gently continue your business you tucking.

"….Fai, I hope someday you'll be able to become Yuui again." I closed my eyes as you finished tucking the blankets around my side where my arm used to be. "We'll talk about the other issues later. Right now, I think you have decisions to make on your own. Whether or not you still want to play Fei's game and be his chess piece, and what to do next. I'll beat you up eventually for knowing things and keeping them to yourself later. For now though, I think I'll get some sleep." You nodded your head, adorning a maternal kind of smile and turned to leave. "About the way you address me…it's annoying. Don't try to make up for things that weren't wrong. Just call me what you like." I listened to you open the door to leave.

"Ok then, but don't regret it….Kuro-pon!" A small chuckle and a click later you were gone. I smiled to myself, proud that I had finally given you the slightest happiness. It's all I want for you. You, the one my heart belongs to.

Author's Note: Ok then! That was a really long chapter! XD I'm a bit rusty with writing at the moment, I haven't done it a bit, been busy with school. Also, please forgive my run-on sentences, I have a bad habit of making a lot of those. ; Most of this chapter was talking about recent events, in case some of my lovely readers haven't read up to the point that I have, so I wanted to bring them up to date just to make it obvious why Kuro has one arm and Fai has one eye/is a vampire/is all sad. XD I kinda skipped the Infinity part and the whole Sakura separating into a body and soul part, but meh! Hopefully you guys have read up to Tokyo at least! Mmmmmmmm Kamui! I also just sort of hinted at the stuff that happened in Celes, but basically, HOLY CRAP SPOILERS! you learn Fai's past, Fai's real name is Yuui in case you haven't guessed, he's a twin, he and Kuro fight, the find Sakura's body, and Kuro kills Ashura. Fai's other curse kicks in and celes is trapped in this bubbly thing that is centered around Fai's magic so he was trapped in it, but he had cast a spell on Kuro's arm so he could summon his sword at will, so he replaced Fai's main magic with the magic that was in his arm to allow Fai's escape. I love spoilers! So anyway, read and review, and I promise my Author's notes will never be this long again!


End file.
